Page 31 of Hunter Moon

Even the wolf was happier than he had been in years. He’d always enjoyed praise from our CO, and frankly, liked the life of a sailor more than I did, but this was different.

This was our pack alpha, telling us that we could stay.

Sure, he hadn’t said it in so many words, and he’d couched it in an implication that he didn’t believe I would do it, but that didn’t change that it was a yes. It was as good as Linden saying that he wasn’t going to toss me out of town, whether he really wanted me back or not. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start. A chance.

Like Shiloh had given me with Brook. The man himself hadn’t left me with a lot of hope—for excellent reasons—but talking to Shiloh had made me start to understand what was going on. That Brook didn’t simply hate me now; he was still trying to wade through the hurt of my abandonment.

All I had to do was keep showing up. Keep those flowers alive. It was obvious, thinking about it like that, but without Shiloh’s help, I’d have just assumed he wanted nothing to do with me. Maybe given up.

Definitely made it worse.

But it didn’t matter, because that wasn’t going to happen. If it took forever to get him to forgive me and accept that I wasn’t leaving again, I’d keep buying him flowers once a week till I died of old age, whether he ever deigned to talk to me again or not. Brook feeling loved was more important than anything I wanted, because he was, and by so many more people than just me.

“I’m sure Ernest will be happy to work with you on it,” the realtor, Deb Hardy, was telling me. I had her on speaker, so I could continue staring at the text from my brother. From my alpha.

Like a weirdo.

“I wouldn’t want to take advantage,” I answered absently. Not that I wanted to overpay for things, but I wasn’t going to rip off a dude who had to be, like, a hundred. If he used my money to buy a house in Tahiti, good for him. More likely, knowing Ernest Sedgwick, he’d buy another houseplant. A really fancy one. The guy wandered around his house all day, watering the things and talking to them, something I’d learned as a teenager when he got in a car accident and he’d needed someone else to do the watering—and, he insisted, the chit-chat as well—for a week.

It was nice, actually, and I’d be happy to feed an addiction like that.

Deb chuckled at me. “I’m sure you wouldn’t. If you did, you wouldn’t be a Grove. And I wouldn’t let you anyway. But let’s be honest, the place has been empty for years, and not a lot of people buy property in Grovetown.”

Which was a fair point. Technically, buying property in Grovetown was buying the rights to use a piece of property from the Grove family. It was all part of a community land trust, except the Hill farm. You didn’t actually own it. It still belonged to the pack overall. You were just the person who had the right to live and build on it, until you made a pack-approved sale, or the pack bought it back from you. You couldn’t go selling it to some millionaire who decided he wanted to live in the middle of a werewolf pack, or to some anti-werewolf group.

My great-grandfather had set it up very carefully so that the pack was protected.

“Fair enough,” I agreed. “His asking price isn’t too high though. It’s a prime piece of property. Just a few lots down from Grove House.”

She laughed at that. “Sure, because a lot of people want to build right in view of the alpha. Not that Linden’s hard to please, but honestly, I’d be buying on the opposite end of town. It’s like moving in next to your parents.” And that, well... that was a damn good point. I’d be doing everything right under Linden’s nose. But hell, didn’t I owe my brother that as much as anyone? The security of knowing right where I was, all the time?

Plus it was what I wanted. Maybe I didn’t want to move back into Grove House, but I wanted to be nearby. I wanted to be there if they ever needed me. Always.

“Oh... I, um, I didn’t mean to—that is, I’m so sorry about your father, and—”

“No, it’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine, but you didn’t say anything wrong. I was just thinking you’re probably right for most people. But I’ll feel better if I can keep Lin in my sights. Make sure everything’s okay.”

There was a tiny inhalation of breath on the line, and I suspected I’d inadvertently said something she found cute. I didn’t know how, being a giant burly guy who scared the crap out of other men, but women usually seemed to think I was a teddy bear. And they were basically right, so there was that.

I didn’t know Deb very well. She wasn’t new to town, but like Shiloh, she’d been a teenager when I left. At least she was someone whose life I hadn’t screwed up with my leaving. As such, she was happy to work with me.

She hadn’t even asked about Linden’s permission to buy property in the area when I’d called. I couldn’t decide whether it was because he’d already given her the okay, or because she assumed a member of the Grove family would be allowed to buy property in the valley. Either way, I had gotten permission from Lin, and I was going to buy the Sedgwick barn.

No, not just to push it down and satisfy my wolf’s destructive urges. That would have been the worst idea yet. I mean, yeah, I was gonna knock it down. But that wasn’t the entire goal.

I couldn’t live in the motel forever—it was a waste of money, and too damn far from home. I needed a place to stay, because I was staying. Even if it meant I spent the rest of my life trying to make things up to everyone around me. They were worth it.

“Okay,” she finally said. “I’ve made some notes about your questions, and I’ll talk to Ernest today and get back to you as soon as possible. I can get Cliff to come down and look at the area too. As soon as you and Ernest agree on a price, and we have a firm plan and the permits, he can get the lot cleared and leveled, and the foundation poured. It’s a lot of hoops, but it’s simpler than it sounds, especially in Grovetown.”

I didn’t feel like being a know-it-all asshole who told her I knew what was involved, so I kept my mouth shut. Heck, I didn’t suspect most realtors had anything to do with laying foundations or anything beyond buying and selling lots, so her help was better than I could have asked for. There wasn’t a lot of call for a realtor in Grovetown, so she’d probably expanded into other aspects of the business. “Thank you, Deb. I’m sure it’ll be fine. I just want to get it framed up as soon as possible. I’d like to get out of the motel, you know?”

She was quiet for a moment, probably surprised I wasn’t staying at Grove House. Everyone was, maybe even Lin.

I went to open my phone, to bring up his text again, prove to myself that it was real, when another came through.

Thanks for the flowers. They’re beautiful.

Brook. My breath caught, and my whole mind went blank. Brook had accepted the flowers, and more, had accepted my number. His hadn’t changed, still attached to his name and a goofy picture of us as teenagers, me pretending to be cool while he stuck out his tongue at the camera.

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